Television Commercial Script

At Reclining Pines Retirement Home, your loved ones will be treated like kings and queens as they enter the twilight of their lives. Our trained staff provides expert attention in a comfortable and relaxing environment. Peace of mind will be yours knowing your treasured family member is in the hands of loving caregivers.

When you come, don’t forget Louie Louie’s Bar & Grill located next to the recreation room. Enjoy delicious BLTs, corn dogs, and your favorite adult beverage. Nothing is better after a trip to Reclining Pines than a frosty mug or two.

Reclining Pines – all you want from retirement care and more. Highway 270 past the recycling center in Hillcrest.

Don’t forget Tiny Joe’s Bait Shop out back!

A Case of the Mondays

Mondays come every week, and sometimes they come with an angry vengeance. Today hasn’t been so bad, but last Monday was difficult. I had been on holiday for the better part of two weeks. The thought of getting up for work that Sunday night was as difficult as fighting the urge to stay in my warm bed that Monday morning. The rest of the week wasn’t much better. I came across I photo that matched my disposition perfectly.

Why So Black, Friday?

As we move toward Thanksgiving this Thursday, we official enter the Christmas shopping season. This starts with what is affectionately known as Black Friday. This is a day where people lose their minds while shopping to save money on Christmas gifts. Many retail outlets offer deep discounts on selected items to drive people to their stores. With the credit crisis, the severe downturn in the housing market, and an overall bleak economic forecast, we should ask ourselves: How much crap do we really need?

It is a genuine question. Does stuff make us happier? Does it really enrich our lives? What if we really changed the way we looked at how we buy and why we buy? As Americans, we need to stop living on credit. We need to pay as we go and have some money let over to put in the bank. 

A friend posted a link on Facebook of a great YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVqqj1v-ZBU

How about we be more intentional about spending time together and using more of our money for worthy causes? Our Gross Domestic Product may shrink, but as individuals we might find a little more peace and peace of mind.

Red Letters

How do Christians define themselves? What issues are important to them?

If you listen to the Christian right, only two issues matter: abortion and gay rights. Right-wing Christians want to outlaw abortion and severely limit the rights of gays. It is curious to me that these are both issues that draw a line in the sand. They both squarely put conservative Christians on one side and everyone else on the other side. Divisive is a good word here. Right wing politicians love these two issues because it pulls conservative Christians out in droves to the voting booth.

My questions is: in this world, what are Christians supposed to be? My answer: we are supposed to reflect the light of Jesus. We are supposed to be known by our love. On a very basic level, we are supposed to deny ourselves and put our neighbor’s needs above our own. Evangelicals know the Bible, but they seem to be very handy in making a distinction between “us” and “them.”

Not to say we should sacrifice our our convictions, but in my opinion we should offer this world an open hand and not a closed fist.

In an email discussing abortion and the election, a close friend of mine made this comment, “Would Jesus not have something to say about poverty, oppression, torture, and war?

As Christians, how can we pick certain issues to take a moral stand and ignore others?

A group of Christians have gotten together to try to take a more holistic approach to issues. They have named themselves Red Letter Christians after the words of Jesus in the New Testament.

Jim Wallis, the editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine, says this about the group he helped found:

“The truth is that there are many people who like the “red letter stuff,” and many of them are not even Christians. Try it yourself sometime. Go out on the street or to your school or workplace and take a poll. Ask people what they think Jesus stood for. You’re likely to hear things like “stood with poor people,” or “compassionate,” or “loving,” or “he was for peace.” Then ask them what Christians or the church stand for. And you’re likely to hear some very different things.

We have a problem. Most people have the idea, as crazy as it may seem, that Christians and the church are supposed to stand for the same things that Jesus did. And when they don’t, people get confused and disillusioned. It’s a problem.

Rev. Tony Campolo says this about Red Letter Christians:

“In those red letters, He calls us away from the consumerist values that dominate contemporary American consciousness. He calls us to be merciful, which has strong implications for how we think about capital punishment. When Jesus tells us to love our enemies, he probably means we shouldn’t kill them. Most important, if we take Jesus seriously, we will realize that meeting the needs of the poor is a primary responsibility for His followers.

The words of Christ, and indeed the life of Christ, is transformational. Jesus only pointed fingers at the religious elite. With everyone else, Jesus engaged them. He did not always agree with people, an He always challenged people. But, importantly, He walked among common, imperfect people, He ate with them, He spent time with them; in a very real way He loved them.

The next time you hear someone talk about abortion or talk about gay rights, either for or against, think about what it really means to show love to that person.

The Tattoo Law

One of the nice things about the Internet is that if you can wade through all the crap, you can find some pretty interesting stuff. Woot has a website where they offer a different t-shirt design every day. With that offering comes a short essay about the shirt.

Below is from that website – an essay on tattoos I could have not said more eloquently.

From shirt.woot.com:

Enough with the bravado. Enough with the posing. Enough with the mystic Chinese or Celtic or Runic or Japanese characters that probably mean something far more embarrassing than what you think they mean. What this world needs is more honest tattoos.

Next time, instead of that meaningless fantasy tat you were going to get, try UNEMPLOYABLE in big Olde English lettering across your throat. Or maybe cover your chest with the mugshot from your most recent DUI, rendered in the style of Boris Vallejo if that makes you feel better. Or adorn your bicep with a wilted rose encircled by banners reading I’D RATHER BE WEARING SWEATPANTS.

With a real truth-in-tattooing law, it’d be so much easier to tell the difference between potential lover and pathetic loser, between cool and criminally psychotic. Notice you never see any WIMP tattoos?

Why Men Deserve What They Get

I am not an expert in relationships. Not by any stretch of the imagination. But, I have learned a few things about relationships with women, even if my learning has been slow and at times rather painful.

I have learned, for instance, that a relationship with a woman is far from a simple thing. I would say complex is a better word. I never understood how a man could have a committed relationship with one woman, and then go out and try to cultivate a relationship with another woman. Not only is a woman complex, but I have realized a woman can be volatile. And when it comes to another woman – explosive.  A woman needs care and attention – much of both.

An article in today’s paper told the story of an Iraqi man living in Baghdad who has two wives. The man has a family with each wife. The headline – no lie – was “Iraqi Man with 2 wives faces war at home, too.” What a surprise – conflict and jealousy between women sharing a husband. In a war zone.

The man, Walid Karim, was married for the first time in a match made by a friend. He found he liked his first wife, but did not love her. So he married again. Iraqi law and Islamic law allow a man to marry up to four times as long as he treats each wife equally. What a condition that is. How many times do you think he has heard, “Walid, you are treating her better than me! You are breaking the law!” At least once a day?

The article tells the story about Walid and how he keeps each wife and family on separate sides of Baghdad. During the heaviest fighting, Walid had to try to keep each wife and family safe while worrying about the other.

I want to say, “Walid, at what point did it seem like a good idea?”

My favorite part of the article is the closing paragraph. Walid says, “We have a saying that if your two wives quarrel with each other, it’s better for the husband. If two wives agree with each other about a man, it’s his end.”

What he is saying is that it is better for a man to constantly hear his wives gripe about each other than to end up dead because they conspired against him. Wow, that must be bliss.

Unruly Fan Causes Oil Spike

Knoxville, Tenn (AP) BREAKING NEWS: An unruly fan ejected at a Tim McGraw concert has caused the price of oil to jump to over $140 a barrel. Oil speculators point to the attitude of the fan as proof of the markets’ instability. “If American country music fans are unhappy, or even drunk, that means the dollar might get weaker in the global market,” says Jack Sebastian, a Bear Stearns trader.

Speculators cite the disposition of the delegation from Saudi Arabia at a recent OPEC meeting to cause nervousness in the market as well. “They look constipated, and possibly a little bloated,” said Mark Tanner, an oil trader in New York. “That causes a lot of uneasiness with the world market. We realize it may have just been the boiled goat, but you never know, ” he continued.

Many oil traders are watching the price of bean burrito futures in the United States. They say if bean burrito sales are soft in America, it might signal a deepening recession. That makes the world markets jitter which, in turn, affects oil prices.

Building my electric car

Today oil prices had the highest one-day jump in history: A barrel of oil moved up $11 to $139. It’s going to be a very hot summer in America. (And I am not talking about the temperature.) 

One of my co-workers talked this morning about building his own electric car. He is serious. He wants to tinker around and see if he can make one. He talked something about using the motion of the wheels to keep the electric batteries charged. (My liberal arts education limits me from getting too deep in the engineering of it.)

But whatever the science, I am all for it. I drive 60 miles a day round trip, and I need a break. I am willing to spend considerable time and money to find an alternative.

Americans are known for their ingenuity. It’s time to figure this one out. Maybe its telecommuting two or three days a week. Maybe I need to find someone with whom to carpool. Maybe the answer really is an electric car.

Whatever is it, we need to start talking and thinking to find some answers. Things are changing faster than we realize.   

 

Peak Oil, the end of Hummer, and the future of America

Reuters reported today that General Motors said it was closing four truck plants and could sell its Hummer brand to cut slow-selling trucks and SUVs from its lineup in response to higher gasoline prices.

America, whether you like it or not, things are about to change. And change radically.

For those not familiar with the term, peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum production is reached, after which the rate of production enters its terminal decline. (Definition from Wikipedia.)

The oil that is left in the ground is harder to reach and harder to refine. That oil is going to cost the oil companies more to get out of the ground and cost more to turn into a final product. And now more customers in the marketplace are driving up costs. Global customers like India and China have a rising middle class hungry for oil. These two countries have lots of people. Billions.

If you don’t like $4 a gallon, how about $5 or $6 or $8 a gallon? If you convert liters to gallons and pounds to dollars, our cousins in the United Kingdom pay $7 a gallon for diesel fuel… today.

Goodbye Hummer. Goodbye diesel dually GMC. Goodbye Cadillac Escaslade.

We aren’t going to wake up one day and find the automakers have a magic solution. In time cars and trucks are going to get better gas mileage, but not overnight. Gas prices are going nowhere but up. We are going to have to learn to drive smaller, drive shorter and share our ride.

So much of the food we eat and goods we buy come from overseas and shipped across the country. Semi trucks get horrible gas mileage compared to cars. Producers of foods and goods will have no choice but to pass the rising transportation costs up to us, the consumers.

In the not too distant future, we might see a rise in regional manufacturing and regional food production. Making goods in China and growing fruit in Brazil may no longer be cheaper if companies can’t afford to get the products to us.

Get ready, America. The fun has just begun.

Open Letter To Shania Twain

Shania -

I was in the checkout line at the supermarket, and I read in People Magazine that Mutt allegedly cheated on you and your marriage is on the rocks. I want to offer you encouragement.

Now is probably not the best time to receive a note from a stranger, but it will probably take a month or two for your people to find this on the internet and forward it to you. By then it will be perfect timing.

I have never been divorced, but I have had plenty of friends who have. From what I can tell, it sucks. Everybody loses in a divorce. Not to be a downer, but you will probably be struggling with this for quite a while.

Here is the upside: you are rich, and you are hot. I am guessing you are rich because you sold a ton of albums in the 1990s. The article in People said you have a chateau in Switzerland. That sounds expensive. Money can’t buy you love, but at least you can be miserable in comfort.

And I saw your picture, and you are are still way up on the hot meter. I would say as you have gotten into your 40s that you are even hotter. In a Jane Seymour kind of way.

Once you are ready to get back out on the dating scene, guys will be lining up from here to Dusseldorf to meet you. You will not lack for male attention. I don’t know you, but I don’t think your celebrity ever caused you to go crazy like what happened with Britney. That means a better batch of guys will be in that line.

I would like to make one suggestion. Try to date a different kind of guy. Maybe even one that isn’t a celebrity. I don’t know your ex Robert, but I do know he produced AC/DC and his nickname is “Mutt”. Red flags, those are.

I imagine you find it difficult to meet regular guys because you are a super celebrity. Have you tried the supermarket while wearing a wig? Starbucks in a baseball cap? Good guys are out there, but I can imagine the ratio of jerks in the entertainment industry is pretty high. What about joining a softball team?

Don’t get down. A lot of people go through a divorce and come out better on the other side. Why don’t you write songs about the divorce and make a album? All the best country songs are about love gone bad.

One request: in the video please wear the lepeord print.

Your friend,

Bonga